To succeed, jump as quickly into opportunities as you do at conclusions. Benjamin Franklin

Life’s short, talk fast. Gilmore Girls

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved – loved for ourselves, or rather, loved inspite of ourselves.Victor Hugo

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.. it has no survival value; rather it gives value to survival. C.S Lewis

Lois: Please tell me we weren’t just set up.

Clark: Looks like it.

Lois: Us. That’s like hot fudge and halibut.

Clark: I take it I’m the halibut.

Lois: Naturally

Smallville.

Study hard… read a book a week.. stay married when you feel like leaving.. write a letter to a friend when you’d rather shop.. play with your children when you want some time alone.. write when you feel like sleeping.. work out when you feel like playing.. control emotions when you feel like screaming.. forgive when you feel like hating.. overcome limitations when you want to quit. Holy Wagner

One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organisation do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always. A W Tozer

Human things must be known to be loved: but Divine things must be loved to known. Blaise Pascal

Julian: I’m not a guy’s guy. I don’t have homies.

Brooke: I don’t think anyone has had homies since 1989.
One Tree Hill

Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul. Charles W. H. Bancroft

I think I technically missed October’s Summary, so here’s a BIG November Summary to make up for it.

..November..

Books Read: Eek. I read one book this month. Haha. A Voice in the Wind – Francine Rivers. I also read Maddison, Shop and Harpars Bazaar though.

Clothes Bought: I bought two pairs of new jeans, faded denim and black skinnies. A faded demin high wasted skirt. A lovely detailed orange top. Thanks Emily for that voucher. I also bought a cute little floral dress from Target for Brie and Luke’s wedding. I might have maybe bought one or two other things – oops.

Consumed Music: I downloaded the new Michael Buble album this month. It’s basically what you can expect from Mr Buble – smooth sultry classic jazzy songs with a few originals. I would really love to see him live even though he’s a bit of a dodgy kinda guy. Also my favourite song of the month which I downloaded the other week – Heartbeats by Jose Gonzales – it’s so so amazing. I listen to it on repeat all the time.

Birthdays: Eden’s 1st birthday party. Which was just a delightful afternoon on Clear Mountain. She’s the cutest baby around. Kristen wasn’t born in November but her 21st party was held in Novemeber which was fun. I think the 21st birthdays are finally finishing up for the year though. My wallet can’t handle many more. It’s also Aj’s 22nd birthday in November. Happy Birthday for Tuesday Aj!

Films Watched: The Twilight Saga – New Moon. I kinda liked it. Although my opinion of it is hard to define. It was awkward and good all at the same time. The highlight was definitely how so many Team Edward’s got converted to Team Jacob, all because of some abs. What was even funnier if that grown women seem to forget that Taylor Lautner is like 16 or something. Everyone should check out Cheaper by the Dozen 2, when Taylor is like 12. It’s hilarious and you’ll probably never find Jacob Black good looking afterwards.

Lessons Learned:

TV Shows love to theme the names of their episodes.

Every Friends episode name starts with ‘The One With’ or the ‘The One Where’ like ‘The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break’

Every Scrubs episode starts with ‘My’ like ‘My Inconvenient Truth’

Every One Tree Hill Episode is a Song Title like ‘Crash Into You’

Every Smallville Episode is simply one word like ‘Hidden’ or ‘Splinter’

Every O.C episode starts with a ‘The’ like ‘The Swells’ or ‘The Dearly Beloved’

All of the Gilmore Girls episodes are so clever but not so much themed.

Other Highlights:

This month I felt fairly cultured. Went to QPAC twice in the one week. Once to see my delightful younger sister perform at her annual dance concert. She’s fairly amazing and born to perform. Not a performance photo. But a hot photo all the same.

I also went to the Sound of Music Sing A Long. Who knew something like this could be so so much fun? I thought the tickets were pretty overpriced considering they were just going to play the Sound of Music on a big screen at The Lyric with the words scrolling along the bottom. But they really made you feel like you got your money’s worth. Firstly, almost everyone dressed up which added to the whole experience. So so many nuns! Then on each of our seats was a little bag with random things inside. Each thing was for one of the ‘Big 5 moments’ or maybe it was 6 but I can’t remember. So we received a little swatch of material resembling some curtain, a party popper, flash cards, an invitation and a little plastic piece of edelweiss. (So maybe it was 5). The best bit of all was that we were all meant to pop our poppers simultaneously when Maria and the Captain kiss for the very first time. It was pretty magical. For some reason, if you’re allowed to sing along in a theatre, you’re allowed to yell out random things throughout the rest of the show as well. To start off with it was funny, and then it just got more rude and less funny after intermission drinks. Haha. Mental note to, well, other people – if you are one of those people who hates people talking through the movie, never go to a sing along. 🙂

Lately I’ve been thinking about how it shouldn’t be that hard to find beautiful things in the world.. things to make you smile. It feels like in the world we live in there are just too many awful things happening and we forget to even look anymore. I think sometimes there’s beauty right in front of our eyes and we miss it. I spend way too much time staring at a computer screen at work, watching the news, checking my bank balance at an atm to realise the beauty in life. I think on this blog I talk a lot about beauty, I post pictures about beautiful things, beautiful people. But that’s mostly for my benefit, so that I don’t stop looking for the pretty things in life. I know that life is messy, it’s full of bad things and bad people and awful tradegies, and that a lot of the time there can be beauty in pain. I wish that wasn’t so though, I wish that there was enough beauty in the world that I didn’t have to search for it.

Here’s some things I’ve been finding beautiful lately.

Knowing that there’s only 35 days til holidays.

That in a single moment. Everything can change. That can be bad at times, but it can also be so good.

I love that photo. I love that it’s all pickles. But there’s a heart in the middle of the prickle. That’s beautiful.

I love songs. I love that there’s this episode of One Tree Hill I’ll watch over and over again, simply because one of the songs in it is so moving.

I’ve decided to sum up each month here on my blog. I hope that I remember to do this at the end of every month. I think it’s a good way to take stock of the month and to remember how much or how little can happen in 4 weeks.

January

It’s actually hard to believe that it’s almost the end of January. I mean, it feels like days ago that we saw the new year in. Thankfully though, despite being a quick month, I have managed to get a few different things done.

Well – I bought a new car on the 2nd of January. And I moved out of Tasmania House a week after that. Who knew that cleaning a 3 bedroom unit could take so long! Then a week after that I moved into my brand spanking new place, well new for me. It’s awesome.

Books Read: New Moon, Eclipse & Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Myer (yes I caved and read all of the other Twilight books – not bad hey), Sophie’s Heart by Lori Wick, Long Way Down by Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman, Becoming Me, It’s My Life & Who I am by Melody Carlson, Life Without Strife by Joyce Meyer, The Little Black Book of Style by Nina Garcia, Threads of Silk by Linda Lee Chaikin and all of the Narnia Chronicles except for the Silver Chair and the Last Battle by C.S Lewis

Clothes Bought: Plain Black t-shirt and some jewellery. I did well this ‘christmas sales’ season and haven’t bought much in January.

In my current job I often have a lot of spare time. That spare time is normally interrupted frequently by phone calls and random things that need to be photocopied, but spare time it still is. I have to admit that I haven’t really been making the most of all this spare time during the day. Every now and then I get some uni work out of the way, but most often, my day is wasted on Facebook.

I remember this one temp job I had back in May or June where for two whole days I printed letters, folded letters, stuffed brochures into envelopes and stamped envelopes. In those two whole days I said no more than 50 words and talked to one person. While these were two of the most lonely, boring and tedious days of my 20 years of existence, they were also days filled with much thought and processing, that I hadn’t allowed myself to do for a long time. Despite all this “spare time” I have throughout the day.. I managed to cram and fill my day with so much unnecessary nonsense that I had neglected or avoided thinking. I now make it a point to stop and ask myself, “When was the last time you made time in your life to think?”

I have a pretty mixed up relationship when it comes to thinking. I love the clarity it can bring, the ideas that form – but thinking normally means facing up to problems and situations that I’ve been avoiding. Lately my thoughts have been more like dreams, dreams of what I wish life was. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my career and what I want to do. I’m pretty sick of just wasting away time here at this reception desk. I’m sick of having to be in this office from 8.00am to 4.30pm. I’m sick of just learning so that I can be tested and graded. I’m sick of monotonous activities that don’t seem to serve any eternal purpose. I have a doctors appointment this afternoon to discuss some test results — all this ‘sickness’ seems to be actually making me physically sick.

There’s this episode on one of my favourite TV shows One Tree Hill titled Every day is a Sunday evening but it’s actually the name of an album by The Blackouts. Peyton is visiting Jake in Savannah on the weekend and it’s the Sunday before she is leaving to go back home to Tree Hill. She talks about how everybody hates Sunday Evenings because it’s the day before you have to go back to school, the day before the weekend ends. It’s such a sad but familiar concept. Every day is a Sunday evening.

The thing I keep thinking about is not whether or not I am perhaps in the wrong industry, but whether contentment is something that can be truly achieved despite occupation or situation. I would so love to be an actor, or a radio host, or a writer – but would those things really make me content. Before I said that those two days temping were two of the most boring and tedious days of my 20 years of existence. I stress the use of the word existence. I don’t merely want to exist. I wish I could truly say that I’ve been living for the 20 years, but I don’t think I really have been. I’ve been existing. What joy and excitement is there in existing? What makes my life or walk different to the person in the office next door? Not much currently.

Lot’s of thinking to do. Lots and lots of thoughts running round in this inexperienced young mind. Should I stay or should I go? I know at some point I have to stop thinking and start acting. Stop existing and start living.

Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. Phil 4: 11-13